Collective Voice welcomes the National Audit Office report on tackling drug harms in prisons

The National Audit Office (NAO) has today published its report into “The costs of tackling drug harms in prisons”.  Our Chief Executive, Will Haydock, released the following response:

Collective Voice supports the latest in a series of repeated calls to improve approaches to address harm from drugs in prisons

We know substance use issues lie behind a significant portion of crime and disorder both in prisons and the wider community (as well as pressure on the NHS and other public services), but fortunately we know that treatment works to help people turn their lives around, improving lives across communities alongside reducing crime.

The NAO report recommends a change to how substance use treatment and recovery support services are funded and commissioned in prisons, so that we can be confident they are delivering the value for money they can and should.

The report asks for transparent and appropriate resourcing, clear objectives for services, and closer partnership working across different organisations.  It notes that ‘drug treatment funding has decreased in real terms’ and there must be ‘a renewed commitment to cross-government partnership working will be essential for the government to direct resources to where they will have greatest impact’.

Collective Voice is supportive of these recommendations.  Sadly, this is not a new identification of either the problems or proposed solutions regarding treatment and recovery support in prisons.  The recommendations echo requests made not only by ourselves but in several other independent reviews including from Dame Carol Black, the Government’s independent advisor on drugs, and the House of Commons Justice Select Committee.

Our members are already helping people change their lives, with knock-on benefits for families and whole communities.  But these successive reports are clear in describing how the current system can be improved, better enabling individuals who want to make changes to do so, with the support of skilled and passionate professionals.

Given these repeated calls for change, we need more action than the Government has promised so far.  The Government’s response to the Justice Committee’s recommendation was described as ‘weak and disappointing’ by the Chair, while Collective Voice expressed concern that the Government had missed the point of the relevant Justice Committee recommendation.

We look forward to seeing how the Government responds to these latest recommendations and working with them to help more people make positive changes in their lives.  The situation could not be more urgent.  We are seeing the highest rates of drug-related deaths ever recorded and the emergence of synthetic opioids in the UK has prompted the National Crime Agency to warn that ‘there has never been a more dangerous time to take drugs’.